The new MacBook is minimalist to the extreme. It’s the Mac boiled down and condensed until removing anything else would make it not a Mac anymore. It’s the first Mac since that very first MacBook Air to depart from existing conventions to a degree that leaves people surprised and upset.

We’ve been living with the new MacBook for a little over a week now, which is about as much time as you need to take in all the new stuff it adds: the Retina display, the Force Touch trackpad, the new, super-shallow keyboard, the Core M processor and its accompanying GPU. It’s also enough time to notice all of the things it subtracts: size, weight, fans, performance, battery life, and most notably, ports.

Most products are defined by the features they offer. Compared to other laptops, the MacBook is defined by the features it doesn’t have.

Share this story

Andrew Cunningham
Andrew wrote and edited tech news and reviews at Ars Technica from 2012 to 2017, where he still occasionally freelances; he is currently a lead editor at Wirecutter. He also records a weekly book podcast called Overdue. Twitter@AndrewWrites